Swift Hart Qu’s spies brought word of infiltrators on the march. The soldiers had set out from Tenai two days ago, and were camped on an uninhabited islet on the way to Shumad.

The Tenai generals’ instincts were sound: capture Shumad while the walls still had weak spots and the remnants of the empire’s army were finding their place among the Circle’s forces. While Ajad rooted out royalist cells within the city, Six’s guards were on alert for saboteurs entering Nerim in supply caravans. They’d sent an assortment of heads, hands, and tongues back to the surrounding city-states as warnings.

But this was the first overt attempt at invasion from the surrounding polities, and Qu had no intention of letting others follow suit. Severed heads were a pale warning to people who thought human lives expendable. What they needed was a story, something to obsess over. The stuff of nightmares. 

A little after midnight, he slipped into one shadow and exited another, over and over again until he found a suitably quiet portion of the Tenai camp. Tonight, the moon was dark and the Quiver shone bright in the sky. Qu took it as a good sign. He approached the first cluster of sleeping soldiers. One by one, he crouched over them and studied their dreams. 

This one dreamed of glory on the battlefield, of standing at the gates of Nerim and roaring a challenge to its greatest warrior. Qu took the image of the city’s walls and raised them higher and higher, until the man was nothing more than a flea in comparison. When the gates opened, Six Wicked Strings stepped out — fifty feet tall, his hands and tail already slick with blood. The soldier groaned and tossed in his sleep.

The next slept fitfully, his dreams little more than flashes of the long day’s march and echoes of his aching feet. For him, Qu took the memory of trees surrounding them and added twisted, tortured faces in the leaves. Shadows slipped through the darkness just out of sight, and he soon realized his company had moved on without him. A keening filled the dreamscape; the faces in the trees shrieked his name. 

Qu moved among the encampment swiftly, leaving nightmares in his wake. Some soldiers, he filled with dread of the impending invasion. Others he gifted with portents of disaster back home. Still others would wake distrustful of their comrades in arms, due to slights and betrayals that happened in their dreams.

At last he slipped out of the shadows inside the leader’s tent. The guards outside were swapping stories of old campaigns, no wiser to the uninvited guest looming over the general. She was an older woman, with iron gray hair in a tight braid. Even in her sleep, her jaw was set as though she were watching her troops going through their drills. 

Qu took all the fears and frustrations that had weighed on him these last few months: that his Circle would betray him, that Ajad and Nehramus hated one another, the danger Six and Cinnabar put them all in with their recklessness. He faced down each one and distilled it into a poison. The vile liquid dripped from his lips as he whispered in the general’s ear. It wormed its way into her mind, her heart.

She whimpered as Qu’s fears found root among her own doubts, shaping themselves to fit her psyche. Swift Hart Qu left the encampment feeling much lighter. When the army awoke tomorrow, it would be to sorrow, guilt, and deadly-sharp suspicion.

Hey folks, it’s Vance and Elliott, here to entice you with a sampling of hellish wonders.

Grown from the prehensile hair of the demon-harpists known as angyalkae, this living artifact merges with its wielder’s own hair (or scalp) when attuned for three motes. Extending down to knee-length, it can be used as an additional limb that’s just as dextrous as her dominant hand. It can be used to make unarmed attacks with the Flexible and Grappling tags, and adds one die on grapple attack and control rolls. However, it’s not compatible with Martial Arts other than Black Claw style, Dreaming Pearl Courtesan style, and similarly elegant styles the Storyteller deems suitable. 

This twisted zither, carved from the brass trees of Hrotsvitha, continually generates a low, meaningless drone of noise, imposing a −1 penalty on Stealth rolls even while unattuned.

When attuned for two motes, the heart-splaying zither is exceptional equipment and grants anyone who holds it an understanding of how to play it. The musician need not be the same character who attuned it. Those who play the instrument inevitably express one of their Intimacies of hunger or desire through it, willingly or no. They convert the bonus die for exceptional equipment to a non-Charm success for influence that supports that Intimacy, but suffer −2 Guile against rolls that would reveal the Intimacy. 

Politically-minded demons keep heart-splaying instruments as tools of intrigue, in addition to making even their dullest First Circle servants sound like professional musicians.

The merchant prince Ofrid Pineborne was as notorious for his negotiation skills as for his gambling. When his debts grew beyond bearing, Makarios, the Sigil’s Dreamer, visited Ofrid’s dreams to strike a deal, hoping to expand his own market in Creation. Ofrid was all too happy to find mortal dreamers for his demonic visitor, but the demon demanded more, requiring the merchant prince’s silver tongue as collateral. Ofrid happily accepted, having already wagered his head (tongue included) on a business venture. In time, Makarios discovered their deal had been struck on false pretenses, and made certain that Ofrid surrendered much, much more.

Ofrid’s tongue, now coated in silver, serves as the centerpiece of an ornate amulet. When attuned for three motes, the bearer becomes fluent in spoken Rivertongue, Guild Cant, and Old Realm, though not their written forms. She triples 10 on rolls to bargain, gamble, or cheat at games, 1 but any 1s that she rolls subtract successes. Using magic that rerolls 1s deprives her of the amulet’s benefits on a roll.